organizations and individuals in a discussion of options to the tripod pole. the current design or at least the schematic of the design is shown on page 10. you can see many of the things that i described in the design. the green seats are the priority seats for people with disabilities and again, there is 50 percent more than we had on the old cars. you can see in the design the three doors, the two wheelchair zones, the designated area for bikes at the middle door to make it separate from the wheelchair areas and other features including the proposed pole locations and i'm sure it's too hard to see from a distance, but it does show

the dimensions of the accessible path and i even need to hold it close to my eyes to read them to you, but the engineering measurement for the path from the doorway to the wheelchair zone is 48.83 inches and the path to the aisle is 42.78 inches. the car that's pictured there is a cab car which is a car that has a train operator space, the cab where it operates. the non-cab cars will look very similar except instead of the cab there, you will have more seating. 40 percent of the bart cars are cab cars and the other 60 percent have more seating

than the cab cars. so, we have put the poles in for a reason. you heard it today. we've also got some issues that we want to work through. i can tell you anecdotally that when we were out talking to 17,000 people the last few weeks, we did hear a lot of people who found the pole valuable. a lot of people with disabilities as well as senior citizens and shorter individuals, people with balance issues, for example. but we also heard loud and clear a lot of people who had issues with the pole. so that's why we are out talking to people. i was at the similar council on the oakland mayor's side earlier this week and i have invited a number of disability organizations to meet with me and talk about how do we find a balance that meets the needs, the diverse needs of

different groups. so that concludes my presentation. i want to again thank all of you for having me here today. and i would be pleased to answer questions or hear your comments. >> thank you very much mr. wine stein for coming here. now we'll take questions from the council. councilmembers, cochairs? cochair supanich? >> hi. thank you very much for your presentation. unfortunately i was unable to get to a real new bart car, but this presentation really made it clear to me what the challenges have been and continue to be. and i just had a few questions about the design. are the cars the same size as the old bart cars,

the dimensions inside and outside? >> the outside dimensions are almost exactly the same. on the inside, we did lose some space. if you look at the figure on page 10, you will see some shaded areas at the very ends of the car. not the cab so much as the other, the non-cab and all the cars. in that shaded space is a safety buffer zone that is in response to emerging safety standards. that's for crash safety. the ends at that shaded space is meant to be a collapsible section of the car that protects the passenger compartment. as a result you can see we lost almost a whole row of seats on each end. we did design the seats to be more space efficient to cover the row we lost. that is one different in terms of the

interior dimensions of the new cars. >> then in total do they hold the same number of people seated and standing? >> the seated part first of all, the new cars will seaton average 53 can ustomers. that averages the carb and non-cars. in the old cars seaton average 58.6. there is a 4.6 seat reduction. it is a common comment that we get from the general public that there are fewer seats and concern about that especially for those riding long distances or those who have a disability that really does require that they not be on their feet for that kind of length of time. fortunately, although we will have fewer seats per car, we will have more seats over all. and what that means is instead of the

669 cars we have today, our fleet size will be much larger and if we can get to our thousand car goal, we'll net a 38 percent increase in seats in the fleet. that means that 6-7-car trains can be 8 or 9 cars and trains that are already 10 cars, for those situation we are working on an upgrade to our train control system that will allow us to reduce our head way and put in more trains to add more seats. then on the standing room, i'm sorry, the new cars will have approximately 10 percent more standing room. >> okay. i notice there is bike racks. is that on every single car? >> the current proposal is a bike rack at the middle door of all the cars.

>> it holds six? >> it holds three bikes per rack. >> is that going to ease, is that enough? there is a lot of people that use the bikes on bart. really that's where i see a lot of hurt feelings and frustration around bikes and wheelchairs and people who are disabled being in that area. are you confident that this will improve with these cars. i realize if we had more cars, less people per cars that will alleviate the situation. we are still figures from that. is there anything you can do now with bart cars to make it easier for people with disability especially mobility disabilities, but also, well, all, really to get on and off the cars in a manageable

manner as the sign is placed. >> so, in terms of the number of cars we deploy each day we are at our limit. in other words we just, you know, if we had more cars we would put them out there to relieve congestion, but we just don't have them. we have in the last year taken out seats to make more room for bicycles. i know that's helpful for people in a wheelchair when they are not present, they use that space. for new cars for better or worse because we are in that space krungch and the loss for the cars for safety reasons, the new cars will have less floor space, the wheelchair zones will have the same size

but bike space are losing about 50 percent of the space. with the organized rack approach, we can accommodate nearly as many bikes as half the space. >> is that the only place where bikes are allowed? >> there is no rule for bikes to a rack. i think your original question is will there be enough? i think sometimes yes and sometimes no. for perspective bart trains at 700 feet long, with one rack per car will provide enough capacity for 30 bicycles and probably additional one if a bicyclist want to keep their bike with them. it's a fairly significant capacity. >> thank you. >> councilmember wong? >> hi, thank you again for

coming out to get this presentation and also for participating in the outreach and everything. i have one still a little concerned about the color of the priority seating. the lime green or lime yellow. i find that it's really too bright and i know that i understand that it would help people to actually find a seat once you get into car. i try to find it through the transportation regulations, i don't know what they call it to see if there is a color scheme for compliance with the ada. i was suggesting to probably use

the international color, well, i don't know if it's international color, but ada symbol that usually is blue and to basically reconsider the priority seating as ada blue and the other seating would be another color. i was just thinking maybe gray to kind of compliment the train. so, i don't know what is the requirement as far as the color, but if we can at least make it consistent with the american disability's act. i would really like to see that as a suggestion. second part is about the pole. i'm very mixed with that. you

know, personally i can't get around it pretty well with my chair but i'm concerned with those who can't move when it gets very very crowded. i have more concern about that. i know we talked about it in our outreach. i thought i would bring it to this meeting and see what if we can talk about it too. thank you. >> councilmember kostanian? >> thank you. a question, how much more of an increase do you see in size for public accommodation? >> i want to make sure i understand your question. is it in regards to the wheelchair zone? >> possibly yes.

>> so, the wheelchair zone is comprised with the federal registry dimensions. i believe they are 32 x 48. it has some extra room beyond that. does that answer your question? >> i'm thinking about other times of the day also especially in the rush hours? >> we will have about 10 percent more standing room per car. so i think in general, we'll be better off having more cars and that will make a big difference. >> thank you. >> now, i just have a few quick questions. then we'll go to a break and then we'll come back. we will hear from the staff and go directly to

public comment. thank you for being patient with the crowd. this is a very important issue today and we appreciate your patience. just right off the bat, thank you for coming today and talking to us about these issues. they are great bart cars. one of the questions i had was, could you give me your impression or your opinion on how, on the process for how the bart accessible task force has been working with bart representative and if you can shed some light for how that process works. >> sure, we also have in the audience the chair and vice-chair of the atf. they may also in the public session be able to describe more fully how that works. but they

produce agendas based on their assessment of what kinds of issues in the bart system need attention that could be in the stations in the parking lots, a lot of accessible path issues, it could be new stations that we are building. i know they are working hard on that. because that's a real chance to come up to code with upgrades. there is also a lot of reinvestment in bart stations and that is something they weigh in on. and then also there is, you know, a project managers that partly for compliance reasons they approach the bart accessibility task force to agenda ized and item to get the feedback to get the right design from the beginning. in my case, that was what we did. it was something that i felt was really important. i think i mentioned earlier i was

able to meet with them at least 8 times so far especially one session, we did one session at the ed roberts campus to do a two dimensional look at the floor space of the new cars. that was just one of those first steps. their input has been invaluable. in many cases we've been able to make changes . i talked about them today. in many cases they weren't for practical reasons. but i would say that over all their input was one of the most important parts of the process over the last 3 years. >> thank you. and with that, i will stop and we will go to a break for 10 minutes. and when we come back we will resume with comments, questions from staff and then we'll go directly to public comment. b

would like to go ahead and just let you know that i had been a little negligent before we went to break. we will go to staff comment and then to agenda item 7. which we'll be having feedback from disability and senior organizations on the bart new car design. we have three speakers there. then we'll go to public comment on agenda item 6. i apologize. it was a little off kilter the way it was presented. for now let's continue on to comments and questions from staff. >> yes, thank you, cochair.

is it okay if i ask the speaker a couple of questions or is it just comments that you seek. >> questions. >> questions are acceptable? great. i had a question. it sounds like congestion is going to be so much better by having more cars and a different design that allows for more people to stand, but how does it factor in increased rider ship based upon the growth of our system over time. will we see those benefits disappear as more people start using the system? >> i think that that would depend on whether we can continue to increase our capacity and pace with that growth. we think that the train control upgrade project

will have a significant effect on being able to put more trains through the entrance by -- transbay. we don't know at what point where we do reach the capacity where train control improvements aren't helpful anymore and even if we had more cars we couldn't use them. once we get to that point, the region just needs to think about other ways to improve capacity and i know the metropolitan transportation commission has left a number of options. it could involve a bart tube or other forms of transportation. that could be a major regional question. >> then i also had one more question. for those that couldn't see the powerpoint on the screen, i think it was difficult to fully visualize the placement of the pole in

relationship to the door openings and the accessible seating. could you maybe go back to your powerpoint and walk us through that specific issue so people can visualize it? >> sure. so, you are looking for me to sort of walk someone through as if they are boarding a side door, is that right? >> sure and to describe the placement of the pole in relationship to the door opening in relationship to the opposing feet that you have to travel to the accessible seating area. >> okay. let me provide a little bit of context. there is three doors on each side of the train. i'm going to

respond to your question as if i'm boarding one of the end doors which is an area that has both priority seats for people with disabilities as well as a wheelchair zone. now battery trains -- bart trains do open from both sides. it's almost like i need to do 2 cases. if it opens from the bottom of that drawing, the left side of the car, as you board, you would have a double side ways facing green on the left and that would be for seniors and people with disabilities. a little bit to the right is a tripod pole right in the middle of that area but offset a little bit off center to open up a wider aisle. sort

of diagonally to your left about 45 degrees will be the wheelchair designated area. to your right as you end would be two blue side facing seats that would be general seating. then about 45 degrees to your right as you enter are more of the green priority seats. so that gives you a general sort of 360 sense. we are thinking about ways to better community with people with vision impairment and blind folks, this diagram. i have recently as today been in touch with the lighthouse for the blind and talked with them about possibly doing an tactile version of it. >> okay. i think that would be helpful, thank you.

>> to the chair, thank you cochair. my question is a little unrelated. are there any emergency protocols for evacuation on this new train car design that is different from the previous design? have you thought about how you will evacuate folks and what the pole is going to do and how the aisles are going to work and with the other doors, with the previous door technology there were certain things you had to do to open the doors. how is that going to work now? >> i think i can give you a partial answer. you are asking something that is beyond my knowledge base. i can point out a few features. we will have emergency door releases that could be used in some

evacuation scenarios. those would be at each door at an accessible height. they will operate slightly differently than the old ones. so there is a need for education when the new cars are put into the system. i think most bart evacuations from what i'm told are through side doors. and we would have more doors. so it should help with evacuation. i know one of the features of the new train cars involves a train operator being able to have better communications with can ustomers in an evacuation scenario and one of those improvements is that they will get a head set that will let them be mobile and communicate while they are out of the cab.

>> moving on to agenda item 7. we have information item. feedback from disability and senior organizations on the bart new car design. we are going to start with lisa maria martinez with the lighthouse for the blind and visually impaired san francisco. following these speakers we'll go to public comment and if you would like to make a public comment, if you would fill out a card at this time. >> hi, brian bashin of lighthouse is unable to make it today. he prepared some notes for me to present today. my name is lisa maria martinez and the coordinator at the lighthouse. let me move along to what brian has to say here. he writes "even though we were were told that you new bart cars which will start

arriving in 2017 will have automated announcements there has been no testing of the speaker system and it wasn't included in the mock up. the mock up had really great visual graphics, but if you are blind these are meaningless compared with the current public address systems now on the cars. and just in asserting something here, i heard earlier in the presentation that by mr. wine stein that the automated announcements will be prerecorded but he also mentioned that there will be information displayed on these screens that passengers want to know and i'm very concerned if they are not prerecorded, i as a blind person and all the other blind and low vision passengers who ride bart will not have access

to this important information that all bart passengers want to know. also i heard earlier about this" clear the path "tam pain, -- campaign, the prerecorded message that the train operator can push when they see someone with a disability on the platform" , personally i find this offensive that a train operator knows what a disabled person looks like since many disabilities are invisible but might require the need for the seats nearest the door. and i don't understand why those cannot be automated. going back to brian's notes here. though bart is proud of it's supposed attention to our community, even a cursory look to the cars shows there is

oversight. there is no label anywhere on the cars. sometimes blind people might want to phone or text a friend to meet in car no. 4. we need those labels. bart professionals haven't thought of that. i have to say personally here in insertion i find the current labels rather useful. a minor point, the bike spaces now are long enough for a tandem bike, but the new ones are not long enough to take a tandem bike and this will exclude those of us who ride tandem bikes with sighted pilots to take a bike without blocking the entry way for people who need greater access. when bart needs to put in an electric outlet, lay some water pipes, it will

consult with professionals to get this done. but either inside or outside of the organization. somehow, though, when it comes to the needs of the disability community, bart drops this professionalism. if there is any input at all, it is bart seeks it from folks who probably have a lot of experience riding battery and -- bart and give a lot of feedback but some of the accessibility designs going on in the new fleet of the future, really need the attention of the individuals, architects who know about accessibility and design, orientation and mobility specialist. we heard earlier that there were multiple phases prior to this final train phase that has gone on for the last few years that have to do with design. whenever were the professionals that know a thing or two about

disabilities and access. bart despite being a huge agency apparently does not have an ada coordinator almost like every large government agency in the bay area. why? many of the accessibility problems with the new fleet of the future could have been prevented with proper professional consultation with experts in the field flt an ada coordinator could have been the catalyst to make this happen. nearly all of the positive disability attributes of bart that are currently implemented have been done so under protest at the end of a court order. bart could change the current paradigm by doing right by the blind the first time by talking with us and safe taxpayers millions in unnecessary payments to a stable of bart contract